Lees family circa 1850 christenings (Huddersfield area)

[foundblue]

St George is on Ancestry combined with St Mary but I think I'll check with the archives in Wakefield to see if any churches in that locality didn't give permission for Ancestry to film their registers.
Perhaps it was Benjamin who was the ungodly one.

thanks for the lead,
Nick

[Gibel]

St George’s Brockholes was built/opened in 1861

[Pennines]

Thank you for that info Gibel -- so that eliminates St Georges! However the newspaper article does confirm that Ezra, at least, was C of E (or became C of E.)

[Gibel]

Where were Benjamin and his wife Fanny christened?

[J.R.Ellam]

Hi

Found the banns of marriage for Abel Hall Lees in Penistone to Elizabeth Broadhead but no GRO reference to a marriage.

Do not know much about Quaker but I think the main Quaker House was in the  Penistone area, there was a small meeting house in Paddock, Huddersfield

Interesting another Abel Hall Lees was born Cheshire a few years earlier could be worth a look.

John

[foundblue]

Gibel - That's the question that started me looking at the children first.   Fanny was daughter of James Cotton and Martha Sykes christened at Slaithwaite and East Scammonden.  Benjamin I assume is son of Benjamin Lees and Martha Sykes christened same place.

But there are some 30 family trees on Ancestry that all say Benjamin was the son of Benjamin Lees and Esther Roberts who were Quakers.    Esther was from Wooldale and Benjamin from Oldham / Saddleworth / Royston area.   Much of this line is well documented and fits nicely although Benjamin snr goes from being a Cotton Manufacturer to a coal miner but perhaps he was just an entrepreneur and not two separate people.   However nothing seems to fit to the family of Benjamin & Fanny and it doesn't feel right to me.   Hence I thought I would look at all the children's baptisms and marriages for clues say an aunt or uncle possibly being witnesses.   Then I discovered no baptisms.

John - That's the sort of thing I mean I will look into Abel Hall a bit more.  The Quaker records for Benjamin and Esther above are variously in Liverpool & Pontefract.   The Quakers seem to have a hierarchy of "offices" and from Marsden (in Lancs not nr Slaithwaite) it goes to Oldham then Liverpool.   Their marriage in Wooldale ends up being recorded in Pontefract.  So at first glance its easy to ignore a record like the Abel Hall in Cheshire as too far.

Thanks for the ideas.  I think I need to contact the Quakers.

Nick

[Gibel]

Almondbury was a huge parish, if you look on the Huddersfield exposed website there is a list of the townships included and the OS map with the parish boundaries superimposed. Within the parish there would be a large number of daughter churches.

Benjamin appears to have been baptised at Slaithwaite chapel (a chapelry  of  Almondbury )with his family given as living in Linthwaite. He was buried at South Crosland Church in 1865.

[Gibel]

I used to live in Penistone and have a book on the Quakers of Wooldale, High Flatts and Midhope, I will dig it out and have a look.

As your Benjamin is buried in South Crosland churchyard I doubt he was the Quaker Benjamin.

[Pennines]

Where were Benjamin and his wife Fanny christened?

There are actually 2 children named Benjamin Lees both baptised in 1793 -- both, at what appear to be, Chapels of Ease of Almondbury All Hallows.

One was baptised on 3 March 1793 -son of John Lees of Mirj? Lane a Clothier baptised at Honley? Chapel.
One was baptised on 21 April 1793 - son of Benjamin - abode Heygate? - Linth. at Slaithwaite Chapel.

Both baptisms are in the Almondbury All Hallows Registers under their respective Chapels.

However Benjamin persistently shows his birth place as South Crossland.

Fanny Cotton

The only baptism I can see is on 30th August 1800 daughter of George and Mary - but unless she was baptised late - she would have been underage at marriage - I cannot decipher the 'abode' but baptism was at Slaithwaite with East Scammonden. Her birth place on census records is consistently Linthwaite. This is probably the incorrect baptism going from what Nick has said!

The marriage was at Almondbury All Hallows on 30/6/1817 - both bride and groom 'of this parish'.

I don't know the area well enough to decipher the 'abodes' in the parish register.

It certainly seems odd that we find NONE of the childrens' baptisms. However certainly the son Ezra and HIS son became C of E - even if Benjamin and Fanny converted from that faith at some point before their children were born.